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When I iron her dress, I try to imagine where she will
travel with it... what she will do while she is wearing it.
It may turn and twirl over the school room as she dances
a dream of ballet. It may be smoothed and straightened by her
slender fingers as she prepares to walk home with her steady
beau, a romance that started in kindergarten and graduated with
her to the first grade... those quick, busy hands flying up
to her hair to adjust a barrette, then on to some other important
task, scarcely still, never out of sight.
The dress may adorn her as she proudly reads from a book,
hesitating at a word, yet anxious to prove her newly acquired
mastery of the written page. Or it may leap over the neighborhood
fences, climbing, pushing, scrambling toward a short cut-- a
secret passage known only to trusted friends.
The dress may glide down the hill atop a new bicycle or
swagger awkwardly above a pair of roller skates which are nearly
out of control. It may be crumpled on the side walk, forgotten
in a game of jacks. It may gracefully rise and fall, rustling
in the afternoon sun, as it is circled by a jumping rope.
It may be covered with a long, cast off skirt as make believe
rules her play, or splashed with paint as the artist concentrates
or torn and dirtied as the acrobat shows off. During winter,
it may be carelessly thrown aside or hidden under jeans and
a heavy snow-suit.
Or it might be playfully placed on her little brother,
as before, with the belt dramatically tied in large, flowing
loops. Sharing giggles and loud whispers, the pair will march
into the living room, she leading with an air of wisdom and
accomplishment, he with a silly, almost embarrassed grin.
Then she will say: �Look, Mama and Daddy.. Look at our new
little girl!�
All I know, when I iron the dress, is that the blue checked
pattern goes so well with her eyes. She looks her best in
blue! Passing the iron over the hem, I am reminded to lengthen
the skirt. At the rate she is growing, nearly all of her
skirts are beginning to fall much too far above her knees...
those knees which are always scratched and bruised and smudged.
All I know is a special girl of seven will squirm into
her favorite dress and I will button the buttons and tie the
belt and the dress will come alive. It will go with her into
an enchanting, noisy, private world. Afterwards in the midst
of continuous chatter, with rosy cheeks, mussed hair, bright,
excited eyes, it will return to our welcome. How lucky the
dress is, to share our daughters� days.
Yet, like her dress, we too come alive when she is near.
We are really the fortunate ones... to feel her joys and her
problems... to know her warmth and her discoveries. The charm
and meaning she gives to our existence touches everything - even
bringing a pleasant quality into the tiresome chore of ironing.
THE END
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